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June 2013

From the Medical Staff Office

It was a long time coming, but it is great that spring is finally here. A recent highlight you should all be aware of: Bridgeport Hospital was chosen one of the top 100 healthcare employers to work for by Becker’s Hospital Review. We are the only organization listed from Connecticut. Becker’s specifically mentioned our benefits program for our employees, which includes a generous tuition reimbursement program.

On Thursday, May 2, Yale New Haven Health System held the seventh annual Joseph A. Zaccagnino Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Conference at the Omni Hotel in New Haven with over 650 attending. There were over 100 performance improvement poster presentations (23 from Bridgeport Hospital), oral presentations from the winning projects at each hospital and one from Northeast Medical Group.The winning entry from Bridgeport Hospital was for the work done by the Stroke Team, including the Pharmacy, to decrease the door to- needle time for tPA for stroke patients to a median of less than 60 minutes. We are very proud of the work done by Phil Barasch, MD, Kellie Geanuracos, RN, Mike Werdmann, MD, and the other team members.

Two other Bridgeport Hospital teams received honorable mentions at the conference for the initiatives “Emergency Department to Floor Handoff” and “Promoting Patient Safety through Increased Medication Error Reporting: A Shared Governance Council & Multidisciplinary Team Approach.”

Keynote speaker was John Kenagy, MD, who spoke on transforming the healthcare industry. He drew parallels with the automobile industry and the information technology sector. Some changes are massive revolutions in how work is done. I’m not sure how you become the iPhone of the healthcare sector. But, I believe we are much closer to being the Toyota of hospitals than many of our competitors.

We have made small changes in how we work every week for years. Consequently we are very lean and efficient for a hospital. The numbers tell us that we are in the top 10 percent in efficiency in almost every area of the hospital. That’s great, but as Dr. Kenagy pointed out, the speed of the transformation is going to demand that we continue to change and innovate at an ever-increasing pace. While the hospital staff continues to change their workflow whenever possible to become leaner and more efficient, to truly position ourselves for success they increasingly need to involve you in the changes. Please help us and yourselves as we innovate now and in the years to come. It is the best way for you to have a role in developing a hospital that becomes better at meeting your needs and your patients’ needs in an increasingly difficult financial environment.

Michael Ivy, MD,Chief Medical Officer

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